


the good son

by oh_simone



Series: just off campus, ten minutes on foot [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - College/University, Family Drama, Gen, Slice of Life, nothing actually happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin Wei is a scholar athlete, an overachieving senior, a good brother, and not a business major anymore. A brief glimpse into the mundane concerns of a mundane kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the good son

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely follows 'king of the table', and follows Jin Wei's perspective. This may as well be original fic, the amount of relation it has to PR, even for an AU, is really nonexistent.  
> Mouseover on Chinese characters.

Mama calls around eight that evening, just as Hu is changing out of his shoes into slippers at the door.

“喂? Mama?” Jin is the one to pick up; Cheung is in the kitchen throwing together fried rice from yesterday’s leftovers.

“Jin 啊，饭吃过伐？” Their mother is one of maybe four people who can tell them apart effortlessly. Apparently, the skill is an omniscient one.

“Not yet, Mama, Cheung is making dinner right now,” Jin replies in Shanghainese, already getting to his feet and shuffling to the kitchen in anticipation of her next words.

With a huff, his mother continues, “Why aren’t you helping him then? Just because he’s the oldest doesn’t mean you should let him do all the work.”

“I am, Ma,” Jin assures, and goes to stand next to Cheung at the stove. He grabs the sesame oil and waggles it in his brother’s face. Cheung smacks his hand with the spatula and catches the bottle before it drops into the wok, all without the slightest change of expression. “Ow! 妈的，” Jin swears.

“Your mother is right here. Keep your mouth clean and don’t be causing trouble,” Mama rebukes. Jin scowls, even as his brother’s rock-face is tainted with the ghost of a smile.

“I’m helping him, and he beats me,” Jin tells her sullenly.

She snorts. “Stop bothering your older brother, let me talk to him.” Jin stares at the handset in outrage, but Cheung plucks it out of his hands before he can protest the utter unfairness of his treatment.

“Hi, Ma.”

Jin slinks back to the living room sulkily and unmutes the TV. Behind him, the door of the bedroom swings open, and Hu comes out, changed into basketball shorts and a tank top, to drop down next to him.

“Who’s on the phone?” he asks, plucking the remote off the seat and switching to one of those generic crime procedurals he’s bizarrely addicted to.

“Mom,” Jin grunts. “She’s talking to the favored son right now.”

Hu laughs. “Yeah right. Favored son’s right here; Cheung’s the filial one.”

“And me? What am I, chopped liver?”

“Oh, big bro, your middle child syndrome is showing,” Hu tells him, and Jin slugs him in the shoulder.

“Ingrates, come set the table,” Cheung calls over the dull roar of the range hood. “Hu, Ma’s on the phone.” Hu scrambles to his feet to take the phone.

“Mami,” he practically trills, “老好想念侬个 !”

“Suck up,” Jin mutters, counting out chopsticks from the drawer and laying them next to the bowls of rice Cheung had set out. Cheung clasps and shakes his shoulder sympathetically and shoves him into his chair. The two of them start in on dinner, leaving Hu to the phone.

Almost ten minutes later, Hu drops into his chair and waggles the phone at Jin. “Ma wants you now.”

“Hey, Ma,” Jin says, hurriedly swallowing his food.

“Jin, Ma wants to say, next time you come home, bring some jerseys back for your cousins, okay? Ba’s going back next month and will be seeing everyone,” Mama tells him.

“That wasn’t a question,” Jin mutters, then amends it after Ma’s sharp ‘what?’ “How many?”

“Two for the boys. Maybe for your sister, a t-shirt.”

Jin sighs. “Ma, you know I don’t get gear for free, right?”

“Don’t be stingy. How is school?”

“Fine, Ma.”

“And basketball? Are you playing well?”

Jin grunts.

“Is your scholarship money okay? If not, tell me, okay?”

“Ma, all is well, I promise. The funding’s just a little late, but it’ll go through soon,” Jin tells her, exasperated.

“I’m just worried,” Ma protests.

“You don’t need to, okay?”

“You know basketball won’t last. You need to keep doing well in your business classes. Have you thought about internships? Your Ba’s friend, Roger, works in Wall Street, you can go help him over winter break.”

“I’ll think about it, Ma.”

Ma tuts. “Don’t just think, go do it!”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” Jin repeats with a note of impatience, and his mother just makes that noise again.

“If you need money though, I can put some into your account too,”

Jin pinches the bridge of his nose. “Thanks, Ma,” he says dutifully, because even though they have literally had the same conversation every time she’s called, he’s suffused with an irritated affection and gratitude that she still wants to help pay his way through school. Nevermind that he’s the only one of the three of them who’s fully funded. “I promise, if I do, I can get a job too. Maybe also at Becket’s.”

“Is that where your brothers work? Becket’s? Can they even bake? Is their bread edible?”

Jin snorts and claps a hand over his mouth, ignoring Cheung and Hu’s questioning looks. “It’s pretty good,” he tells Ma once he’s controlled his laughter. “I’ll bring some back next time.”

“Well, okay,” Ma says doubtfully. “I’ll let you go. Call back more often, Ba thinks you’ve abandoned him.”

“Bye, Ma.” He hangs up, and catches his brothers staring at him with varying degrees of apprehension. “What?”

Hu swallows his food. “Have you told her yet?” he asks. Jin just glares.

“You can’t hide it for long,” Cheung says calmly. “And if she gets into Hu, he can’t lie; you know he’ll tell her everything.”

“Hey!”

“I know,” Jin snaps. “I’m just waiting for a good time, okay?”

“Don’t wait too long,” Cheung says, because he’s one of _those_ sorts of older siblings, never mind there’s barely a five minute difference.

Jin rolls his eyes and scrapes his bowl clean. “I’ll handle it.”

 

Jin rolls into Professor Hansen’s seminar the next day clutching an independent study form like a lifeline. It’s full of grad students, all unfamiliar faces, except for Raleigh, a Becket, and also his TA for Intro to Poli-sci two semesters ago, who grins at him and gestures at the open seat next to him.

    “Hey, good to see you, man. Are you taking this class? Auditing?”

    “Taking,” Jin admits. “Need permission from Hansen, but I emailed him already, so he knows.”

    “Yeah, no worries, there’s another undergrad. That one’s Chuck,” Raleigh tilts his chin towards a skinny, sullen kid sitting on the opposite end of the table flipping through his phone. His voice dips a little as he adds, “Hansen Jr.”

    “No shit,” Jin says, craning his head forward to get a better look. “He a genius or something?”

    “Or something,” Raleigh affirms. “Kinda a little punk though.” As if detecting gossip on him, Chuck’s head jerks up, his gaze lasering in on the pair of them. Raleigh and Jin hurriedly sit back and shuffle notes and pens, looking anywhere but at the tiny yet fearsome freshman glaring at them.

    “When’s the first game?” Raleigh asks him.

    “In two weeks, Friday. You coming?”

    “Yeah, I think so.”

    They talk idly about the upcoming game before Professor Hansen blows into class, a wrinkled sports jacket thrown haphazardly over t-shirt and jeans.

    “Morning, everyone.” He drops a stack of books onto the table with a resounding thud and leans forward on his palms. His smile is shark-like. “I hope you all did the readings for the week. So let’s talk.”

 

The journalism building is way on the north side of campus; it takes Jin ten minutes of hustle for him to get there, dodging crowds of students and bikes.

“You took your time,” Yuna says in her dry, unamused voice. With her shaved head and remarkable poker face, Jin sometimes wonders if she actually is just a female version of his brother. “Because of that, you signed up to interview the neurobio lab on their military funding. Congrats. Here’s Dr. Geiszler’s email.” Scratch that; she is about a thousand times worse than Cheung.

Jin just looks at her. “I know nothing about neuro bio science stuff.” Yuna shrugs and drags an angry red mark across the page she’s editing.

“I suggest you do some research then.”

He tries again. “Look, who’s doing the football game? I can swap with them— I already have some quotes I can use.”

“Oh good. You can share them with Fatima, but nope. You get neuro bio science stuff.” Yuna levels him a cool, dignified look. “You want to be a reporter, you pay your dues.”

“I could go back to interning on Wall Street,” Jin threatens, but to his annoyance, Yuna just laughs in his face.

“Get to work, Wei.”

Jin snatches the email out of her fingers, half hoping to incur a vicious papercut, but she just waves him off dismissively.

 

Basketball practice passes by in a blur of sweat and drills and sharp whistles. Jin loves the game— the sound of the ball ricocheting off the floor and smacking into his palm, the adrenaline, the footwork and the beautiful clarity of a perfect shot. In the game, and he doesn’t have to think about fulfilling major requirements on the sly, deadlines for his articles. By the time it’s over, he’s feeling the pleasant ache of his muscles that buzzes through his body. He showers and then heads out to catch the bus, chatting idly with his teammates before waving them off when his bus arrives. It’s a leisurely ten minute ride, winding around the perimeter of the campus and then down the main street where _Becket’s_ is located. Although the sky is already darkening, the shop still has a few people crowded around its small, cramped tables up front. He spots Raleigh behind the counter, and leans on the counter.

“Hey man, Hu you looking for?” Raleigh asks, then waggles his eyebrows.

Jin shakes his head and gives him a look of pure unadulterated pity. Raleigh has the soul of a sweet-faced golden retriever though, and he just laughs in that way that has the wait-list for his class in the double digits.

“He’s in the back, prepping tomorrow’s dough. Should be about done though; you want anything to drink?” Raleigh asks, already inching towards the espresso machine.

“Americano?” Jin replies.

“You gotcha.” Raleigh starts the process of coffee making— banging things and dumping stuff and pulling mysterious levers. Jin watches closely, in case he ever needs to bully Yancy into hiring him too.

“Hey, Raleigh,” he finds himself asking. “Did you and Yancy always want to open a bakery?”

“We-ell,” Raleigh drawls, juggling an empty cup between his two hands. “We kinda grew up at our Nana’s. Dad and Mom traveled a lot for work, and if it was only for a few weeks, we’d stay with our grandparents rather than move around too much.  I don’t know, it was the natural choice, seemed like, when we were done in the military.” He slides coffee over to Jin and folds his arms on the counter, cocking his head at Jin.

“So, what did Yancy say when you went back to school?” Jin asks, shifting on his feet. The coffee is bitter and hot; he doesn’t like it, but well. “Was he pissed you were leaving him behind?”

“Yance?” Raleigh barks laughter. “Nah. He was angrier when I put off applying a year to help get this off the ground. Yance is the heart of this place; I just help out.”

Jin frowned. “But you two opened it together, didn’t you?”

Raleigh shrugs and makes a hand whirl-y gesture. “On paperwork, sure, I own half of it. But in practice? Yance runs the ship and books, and I earn room and board here, while I work on my degree. I’m pretty sure he already knows how he’s going to redo my room when I move out.”

“Bright green wall-paper,” Yancy booms as he and Hu come in from the kitchen and catching the tail end of the conversation. “Madden NFL, on a seventy-inch hi-def screen. One of those automatic massage armchairs, and I’m going to hire Hu to paint a mural of Raquel Welch on the ceiling.”

“You’re the actual worst,” Raleigh tells him, but Yancy just hooks an arm around his neck and smacks a loud, noisy kiss on his temple, gleefully ignoring his younger brother’s protesting howls.

“Dude,” Hu says, leaning over the counter and frowning at Jin’s drink. “What are you even drinking? You hate that stuff.”

Jin glares at him and jerks his cup back. “Lay off, man. My EIC just dropped me into the deep, and I got two response papers to bang out by Monday.”

His brother makes a sympathetic expression that morphs into a determined one. “You can do it, bro. I got you. Also, come to me next time you want something to drink,” he says, cutting Raleigh a dirty look. “Family loyalty, yo. This fool’s coffee is whack.”

“Them’s fighting words, Wei,” Raleigh warns mildly, one hand still wedged against Yancy’s chin.

“Uh huh.” Hu looks unimpressed, especially when Yancy’s straining tongue manages to slobber over Raleigh’s fingers and he squawks in outrage. Hu unties his apron, balls it up and tosses it in Raleigh’s face, grinning when he yelps. “Anyways, keep working, losers. I’m out.”

Jin waves to the two Beckets as he follows Hu out the door, then jogs to catch up to his younger brother.

“Yo,” Hu says as they wait for the bus. “What do you mean, asking Raleigh about Becket’s?”

“Was I not supposed to?” Jin asks, blinking. “I didn’t know, man. Sorry.”

Hu shrugs. “Nah, just that it was kinda a touchy subject for them. But, you know, I know why you asked.” Jin holds up his hands, indicating he was backing off. His brother high-fives both of his palms in quick succession, then gives Jin a narrow look, all seriousness.

Look, Jin. Ma and Ba won’t be upset that you changed majors without telling them; I’m pretty sure they’re going to be pissed that you didn’t say anything for almost a semester.”

“Ah- _hhh_ ,” Jin exhales hard and loud, rubs a hand over his head in frustration. “Jesus, Hu. Lay off.”

It’s Hu’s turn to raise his hands in deference, but Jin ignores him in favor of flagging down the oncoming bus.

 

Less than a week later, Jin’s lingering outside a lab doorway in the bio-sci building, hand raised to knock on the door. Before he can though, his ears pick up muffled voices arguing in some foreign language. They grow louder as he listens, and he has just enough time to step back hastily before the door is thrown open and a pinched, narrow faced man with a cane and argyle vest comes storming through, a cloud of chalk dust and the faint smell of ammonia trailing behind him. He glares at Jin, who, despite towering over the man and being twice his size, shrinks against the wall. The man scoffs and storms off, shouting, “Good luck, you’ll need it with him!” and then muttering a string of strong-sounding German imprecations.

The open doorway of the lab is now letting out loud motown, and a cheerful male voice warbling, not unpleasantly, along, the sounds filling the hallways and bouncing through the empty corridors. Jin glances down at his watch and with a sigh, steels himself to peek inside.

“Professor Geiszler?” he says. The inside of the lab looks… lab-y. It’s got test tubes and those weird triangle beaker things (“Erlenmyer flask!” Hu shouts in his mind) laid out along one wall, a wide black-topped table laid with a dissecting tray and microscope on one end, an enormous hunk of… organic matter on the other. It looks a little pickled, Jin thinks, dismayed.

“Hey!” He looks over to where the other man in the room, a compact, grinning man in rolled up shirt sleeves and a skinny tie bounces up from his position hunched over a tablet on the table. He comes around, snapping off his latex gloves. “You must be Jin, right? The reporter? Call me Newt. No one calls me Professor, except for my mother.”

Jin blinks, taking the proffered hand on automatic. “You’re Professor Geiszler?” The other man can’t be more than ten years older than him— and with those full-sleeve tattoos and hipster glasses, he’d figured this guy was a grad student.

“Newt,” Professor- Newt protests, then jerks his chin over. “C’mon in. Sit down. Want a cookie? I get them from this bakery, just off of campus, maybe you’ve heard of them— actually, hey, do you work there? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you there before, but that’s also before the caffeine kicks in so, you know.”

“ _Becket’s_?” Jin supplies. “My brothers work there.”

“Oh?” Newt perks up. “More than one? Twins—Wait wait, triplets?”

“Uh, yeah, identical actually-”

“ _Rad._ You beat out 500,000 other births to earn that, dude. Good job.”

“Thanks?”

Newt flaps his hand at a chair and Jin takes it slowly. “Anyways, so whaddaya wanna ask? Go ahead, I’m listening, just the timing on this experiment is pretty crucial, so I’ll be on my feet.”

Jin notes the gently steaming beaker on a hot plate, and also the fire extinguisher in convenient reach of it. He scoots his chair back a little.

 

    The interview goes as well as to be expected in a lab full of corrosive, putrescent, and mildly explosive materials. Jin manages to eke out three questions about Dr. Geiszler’s research on sensorimotor neural engineering and his experimentation on lab rats before the solution on the hot plate starts emitting a foul smell that has Jin gagging and Newt bouncing on the ball of his feet, blinking rapidly at the greenish sludge and looking pleased as punch. He gets to ask another one before the previous other occupant of the lab comes storming back in, this time with a brown bag of food that he shoves at Newt before declaring something uppity in precise German.

Jin sits awkwardly, wondering how flagrantly they’re breaking lab rules and whether this is something he needs to not mention in the article, as the two descend into more loud arguing before Newt, chewing on the sandwich that had been in the bag, perks up and gestures to Jin.

    “Oh, hey, Hermann, hold up. Say hi to Jin. He’s interviewing me for the school daily.”

Jin waves tentatively as the other man, directs his sardonic, black gaze on him.

    “Hey…” he says.

    “Hermann Gottlieb,” the man says and shakes his hand perfunctorily. Jin had guessed; Yuna’s notes and Newt’s biography online had indicated his work with the mathematics genius more or less had been ongoing for near on a decade. “My apologies for the disruption; it seems Dr. Geiszler has once again, failed to inform the relevant parties of his plans.” the last of the sentence was clearly directed, with some venom, at Newt, who rolled his eyes dramatically.

    “Oh my god, I forgot okay? And besides, come on. It’s just a little acid, there were rubber gloves on and everything!”

    Hermann slammed his cane down in pointed emphasis of his words. “You let. My. Six year old. Handle. Hy-dro-chlo-ric-a-cid.” Each syllable was punctuated by a stab with his cane at Newt’s calves.

    “And she did great, okay? And it was totally diluted! I think you’re just mad ‘cause she thinks chemistry is way cooler than differential equations now-OW. FUCK, Hermann!”

    Jin packs his notes away quickly. “I’m just… gonna go,” he says. “Maybe I can arrange to call you and… follow up? Yeah, I’ll just… email.”

 

He’s typing up what few notes he has in the journalism office, trying to diplomatically find words to describe Newt’s working style (‘bombastic’? ‘Vivacious’? ‘Fire hazardous’?) when Yuna leans out of her office and calls for him. The only other person on the floor is Yuna’s girlfriend, who’s occupied the conference table with her books and is idly defacing her reading.

“Don’t worry, Wei. You’re not in trouble. Shut the door.” Yuna leans against the front of her desk and hands him a printout of an email. He takes it, warily, and she gestures for him to read it. He skims the email, but then has to stop and read it from the top again slowly.

    “Yuna,” he says. “What is this?” He looks at her, can feel his mouth hanging open. “Is this real?”

    Yuna looks on the verge of saying something cutting, but visibly reels it in and nods, a small smile at her mouth.

    “What,” he splutters. “How?”

    “I sent Naomi Sokolov your article on student debt, and she thought it was worth a shot. So congrats, Wei. You’re officially a finalist for the ACP Story of the Year contest.” A full grin spreads across her face. “It seems we’ll make a journalist out of you yet.”

    Jin sits down, misses the chair, and fights the urge to grab his terrifying editor in chief and kiss her in a manly, celebratory fashion. One because that is really not in line with the sexual harassment workshop they all had to attend in orientation, and two because her girlfriend is now watching them curiously through the window and she happens to be a member of the Korean Olympics fencing team.

 

That night, Cheung makes Jin’s favorite, _yanduxian_ soup, heady and savory, chock full of fresh and salted pork and tender chunks of winter bamboo. Hu brings home a case of Pyramid IPA and they huddle around the kitchen table, battling chopsticks and jostling elbows.

    “Now,” Hu tells him. “Now is the perfect time to tell Mom and Dad. You’re a fucking award-winning journalist, bro!”

    “Shortlisted,” Jin corrects, but he’s unable to help his grin. “I will, I will. I’ll tell them this weekend.”

 

 

Cheung and Hu have work and midterms, respectively, so Jin is the only one who takes their dirty laundry back to their childhood home in suburban California. Ba is gardening when he parks in the driveway, thinner than the last time he’d come home, but looking peaceful as he prunes away dead vines under the hot sunlight.

His mother is in the kitchen, pickling bunches of fresh, spicy smelling sher-li-hon. She has the tablet the three of them had given her for Christmas propped up on the kitchen window sill, playing a Chinese talk show featuring bawdy celebrities and cartoon sound-effects. Jin comes in to give her a hug, and she sniffs and grumbles that it’s too hot, but doesn’t shove him off as he stays next to her, arms slung about her thin shoulders. Eventually, she asks him how things are with basketball and school, and then begins rehashing the latest gossip in the neighborhood. Jin hums affirmatively as she tells him about the Chang’s oldest daughter (engaged to her artist boyfriend, they’ve rented out a museum for the wedding venue), her newest finds at the Nordstrom Rack. He lets her push him around the kitchen, making rice, checking on the fish, beating eggs. By the time his father has finished up outside, Jin is setting the dining room table.

    “Eat more,” his mother tells him when the three of them sit down, mom still in her apron. “What do you even eat up there? Does Cheung do all the cooking?”

    “He’s alright,” Jin shrugs. “Yours is still better.”

    His mother waves dismissively. “He’s still learning. He’ll get better. You won’t, if you don’t ever cook.”

    Across the table, his dad just chuckles into his rice. “Stop pushing him. Jin will be fine.”

    “He needs to eat well, if he’s going to keep playing basketball,” his mother tuts, and forks more greens onto his plate. “Jin, eat healthier. Eat more vegetables and fruit.”

    Jin obediently eats a mouthful. “I’m playing fine, Ma. You guys still coming up for the opening game?”

    They assure him that it is so, and he nods.

    “How are your classes?” his dad asks mildly, and Jin feels a lurch in his stomach. He fumbles his chopsticks and sets them down on the table.

    “Well,” he says carefully. “I’m a finalist for Associated Collegiate Press individual award.”

    His parents stare at him blankly. His mother asks bluntly, “What is that?”

    There’s no going back now. So Jin opens his mouth and tells them.

 

On Monday, Jin gets out of basketball practice and is on the bus towards Becket’s when a professor with a cane stumps onboard. Unwittingly, they catch each other’s eye, and after a moment of awkwardness, Jin raises his hand in a half-hearted wave and Professor Gottleib manages a small, formal smile. To Jin’s surprise, he sits down across from him on the bus.

“Jin, was it?” he asks, and Jin nods. “How is the article going?”

“Uh,” Jin replies. “Almost done.”

The professor bobs his head, almost twitchy. It’s a marked change from the fire-and-brimstone terror he’d been at their first meeting. “Well, I’m sure Newt will be pleased to read it,” he tells him. Jin nods back helplessly. The bus crawls forward through afternoon traffic. He leans forward and thinks, to hell with it.

“Professor Gottlieb,” he says. “Would you mind if I asked you to clarify some of the uh, details of Newt’s project?”

The professor blinks rapidly, but then smiles. “Of course. Anything I can do to help.” They discuss Newt’s research all the way down the main street, continuing as they hop off on the same stop, then reaching a momentary pause when they reach Becket’s door.

“I’m actually meeting Newt here,” Professor Gottlieb says, and Jin hastily opens the door and lets the two of them in. It’s Hu behind the counter, and his younger brother waves, but Professor Gottlieb continues past the display counter ‘til he reaches Newt, crammed into the cornermost table and working off his tablet.

“Hey Herm,” Newt says cheerily, then furrows his brows at Jin. “...Hu? No, wait wait, basketball jersey- Jin! Hi, how are ya?”

    “Good to see you again,” Jin says, shaking his hand, then jerks his thumb back at Hu. “Just picking up my brother.”

    “Jin had some astute questions for his article we were just discussing,” Professor Gottlieb tells Newt. “I’ve answered the best I could, but I’m not completely familiar with the terms of your contract obligations, so you may need to clarify some points.”

    “Oh, yeah? Sure, sit down.” Jin looks from Newt’s bright grin to Professor Gottlieb’s pleasant expression, and shrugs. “How’re you doing? I hear your preseason game is next week; I’m planning to go cheer you guys on.”

    “Thanks,” Jin replies.

    “You planning to play ball when you graduate?” Newt asks curiously, and Jin shakes his head.

    “Journalism major,” he says, the words slick and slightly sour in his mouth. “I uh, I’ve always wanted to write.”

    “You write quite well,” Professor Gottlieb tells him, and Jin looks to him in surprise. The slight man gives him a thin-lipped smile. “I read the school paper, and see your work often enough.”

    “He showed me your article on athletic funding,” Newt adds. “Nice work— though I can’t say I agree with all your points. But you got me to think about it.” He grins.

    “Thanks,” Jin says weakly. Behind the counter, Hu is eyeing them; both him and Cheung have been tiptoeing around him since he returned Sunday morning. They were the ones who wanted him to tell Ma and Ba, and now Cheung and Hu could barely look him in the eye. It is that thread of irritation that makes him blurt out, “My parents think I’m just wasting my time though.”

    “Why?” Newt asks, without missing a beat.

    Jin stares at him awhile, then looks away. “They want me to stay in business, ‘cause they think it’s more practical, I guess.”

    “They aren’t necessarily wrong,” Newt shrugs, despite Professor Gottlieb’s hissed “ _Newt!_ ”. “If you want to write, you’re going to fight a lot harder, and a lot longer, for a lot less money than a lot of other careers.”

    “I know that,” Jin says, frowning. “I get it.”

    Smiling, Newt leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Okay then. You know. That’s good.”

    Professor Gottlieb shoots his partner a withering look. “Wonderful, he has your approval.”

    But Newt was unfazed though, just makes a waving motion. “Don’t be facetious, Herm.”

    “ _Facetious_ — Newt, I-”

    “Yeah yeah, fine. What I am getting to is,” Newt leans forward, and Jin has to struggle from leaning back. “The truth is, you don’t. You don’t know how it’ll be. You’ll regret decisions you made years ago. You’ll question your own mind, your abilities, your confidence. But you know what?” He crooks a grin at him. “That’ll happen no matter what you choose to do.”

Jin is quiet.

Besides him, Professor Gottlieb sighs impatiently and rustles in his coat. “Newt, get me a pot,” he orders, and thrusts cash at his partner. ”Just go. Black is fine.”

Newt shrugs and slinks off to the counter, and after a moment, Professor Gottlieb clears his throat.

“When I was in university,” he says, his accent clean and precise. Jin looks askance at him. The professor catches his eye and smiles wryly. “My father and I stopped speaking in my third year.”

Quiet lingers between them, before Jin asks quietly, “Why?”

“We-ll,” Professor Gottlieb shifts and muses, “I enlisted in the Luftwaffe—that is, the German air force.”

“Seriously?” Jin can’t help asking, because the professor looks about as threatening as a wet kitten.

“Oh yes. Airman first class, in the avionics center. I wanted to be a pilot,” he confides, lifting his eyebrows in an expression of wry amusement. “My father was furious. He had done his time in the military, and even now works on military contracted projects. But he never wanted me or any of my siblings to go anywhere near the military. Thought it was a great waste of time, that I was squandering any potential and all opportunities. I was accused of indulging in teenage rebellion,” the professor drawls with relish. “Utter bollocks of course. I never wanted to- to rebel, or shoot guns. Whatever he believed, I didn’t go out of my way to make him angry. Just one day, I was sitting in the library, working on a paper and surrounded by dozens of other students doing the same, and I looked up. And I thought, with this stark, deadly clarity, ‘I will do nothing else for the rest of my life, if I don’t leave now.’” The professor looks at Jin thoughtfully. “Do you know how terrifying that idea can be? How that swift understanding can just—spur you right out of your chair, and march you down the hall, take you straight through a doorway you’d never dared imagine darkening?”

Dry-mouthed, Jin nods a little.

The professor leans, eyes dark and knowing, and asks low and fervent, “When you make that decision to do something different—something others can’t even begin to understand—Isn’t it the best feeling in the world?”

 

“Here,” Hu says, and Jin looks at the carry out cup in front of him, then up at his younger brother, who slides into the empty seat across from him. Hu props his chin up on his hand and nods to it. “Coffee,” he tilts his head and shrugs. “-ish.”

After a moment, Jin takes a small sip. It’s hot and rich, sweet and milky, with just a brush of spicy. “Huh,” he says. “Not bad.”

“You and your whore mouth, it’s fucking delicious,” Hu tells him indignantly, and Jin smiles crookedly.

“Alright,” he concedes. “It’s kind of awesome.”

Satisfied, Hu leans in. “I’m calling it the Crimson Typhoon,” he tells him, and then laughs when Jin rolls his eyes, because, really? That had been their collective nickname as children, wild and rambunctious and holy terrors together and apart. He glances around Becket’s, but it’s nearing closing time— Newt and Professor Gottlieb had left ten minutes ago, bickering absently about dinner, shoes, math, whatever. Over in the kitchen, Raleigh’s bright, slightly off-tune warbling to Daytripper is punctuated by slaps of dough, and behind the counter, Yancy is locking up the till; a loaf of pumpernickel is sitting on the counter, waiting to be taken home with Hu and Jin.

“Ready to go?” he finally asks, and Hu shrugs, scoots back from his chair.

It’s chill outside, and they walk close together, hunched against the gusts of marine breeze.

For most of the walk, they are companionably silent, something Jin marvels at in the back of his mind, because Hu talks almost as much as Cheung glowers. “Mom and Dad’ll come around,” his little brother finally says. “They can’t stay mad at you forever.”

Jin shrugs. “I know.” He does. Still. His parents weren’t speaking to him at the moment (on the contrary, he’d already fielded two calls from bemused cousins, who’d been enlisted by his mother in making him see reason), and he can’t help the insidious thought that once more, he is the disappointment in the family.

“It’s not true,” Hu says seriously, and Jin doesn’t even wonder that his brother can read his mind like that. Slinging an arm around his shoulders, drawing him in close, Hu pats him consolingly, then with more intent until he finds the apartment key tucked into Jin’s coat pocket. “You’re the ham in our ham sandwich,” Hu declares as he unlocks their door and they stump inside. “With lettuce and provolone and that funky fresh pesto from the corner shop.”

“Please,” Cheung says dryly from the kitchen. “You know that analogy makes you the soggy slice of bread.”

    “I’m gloriously panini-pressed, a delight in your mouth,” Hu shoots back, squints as he thinks about that, and then dissolves into gleeful cackling. Jin and Cheung exchange long-suffering grimaces. As Hu locks the door behind, Cheung cuffs Jin lightly.

    “I talked to Mom a little,” he says quietly, and Jin bites back the urge to snap. “She’s not mad anymore, she just doesn’t understand. You need to explain it to her.” Gently, he elbows him. “You’re a good son, Jin. Ma and Ba know this.”

    Jin takes a deep breath. He doesn’t say that he could explain it a thousand times, and she still wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t say that of the three of them, Jin’s probably the last one she’d listen to. But Cheung looks so solemn and earnest, that he just sighs and nods.

            “Yeah,” Jin agrees. “Soon.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jin's chapter got a bit away from me-- at the same time, if I hadn't put my foot down, I probably would have written another twenty pages of his man angst to be perfectly honest.  
> Yanduxian is a fab cold weather soup. I ended up making some because writing about it made me crave it super bad.  
> Other parts of this series are being written-- at a guess, the next part should be Chuck's, but we shall see how quickly I write.


End file.
